Kenneth Haigh


Kenneth William Michael Haigh was an English actor. He first came to public recognition for playing the role of Jimmy Porter in the play Look Back in Anger in 1956 opposite Mary Ure in London's West End theatre. Haigh's performance in the role on stage was critically acclaimed as a prototype dramatic working-class anti-hero in post-Second World War English drama.

Early life

Born in Mexborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, Haigh studied drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama, which at the time was based at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Career

He played the central role of Jimmy Porter in the premiere production of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger in 1956 at the Royal Court Theatre. Haigh's performance in a 1958 Broadway theatre production of that play so moved one young woman in the audience that she mounted the stage and slapped him in mid-performance.
For the film version released in 1959, he was passed over in favour of Richard Burton. Coincidentally, Haigh went on to portray the explorer and adventurer Richard Francis Burton in the BBC production of The Search for the Nile. He also briefly appeared in the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night, uncredited. His other major historical roles were as Brutus in Cleopatra and starring as Napoleon in Eagle in a Cage.
Later he portrayed Joe Lampton – a character created by John Braine in the novel Room at the Top – in the television series Man at the Top and its eponymous spin-off film. Haigh also released an LP in 1973, titled How to Handle a Woman.
Haigh made occasional guest appearances on television; for some, the most recognisable is that of time-travelling Flight Lieutenant William Terrence Decker, in the Twilight Zone episode "The Last Flight". He had already played, three years earlier, another pilot, in High Flight, and had portrayed Pat Casey in Lionel Bart's Maggie May.

Personal life

Haigh married the West Indies model Myrna Stephens in 1974. They divorced in 1985, but remained good friends; she nursed him through his final years of ill-health.

Death

Haigh died on 4 February 2018, aged 86. He had spent his last years in a nursing home after oxygen deprivation led to brain damage in 2003, following his accidental swallowing of a bone in a restaurant in Soho.

Filmography

Theatre

  • Othello
  • The Archers Stage Play
  • Dear Little Liz
  • Look Back in Anger – Jimmy Porter
  • The Mulberry Bush – Peter Lord
  • The Crucible – Rev John Hale
  • Cards of Identity – Beaufort
  • Caligula – Caligula
  • Zoo Story
  • Altona – Franz von Gerlach
  • The Collection
  • Playing with Fire
  • Julius Caesar – Mark Antony
  • Maggie May – Patrick Casey
  • Too Good To Be True – Burglar
  • Prometheus Unbound – Prometheus
  • Henry IV
  • The Hotel in Amsterdam – Laurie
  • Much Ado About Nothing – Benedick
  • Equus – Dysart
  • Prometheus Unbound – Prometheus
  • Marching Song – Rupert Foster
  • The Father – Father
  • California Suite – Replacement: William, Sidney, Stu
  • The Aspern Papers
  • Twelfth Night – Malvolio
  • Julius Caesar – Brutus
  • The Tempest – Prospero
  • Clothes for a Summer Hotel – F Scott Fitzgerald
  • Othello – Othello

    Television

  • The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. – James Boswell
  • Alfred Hitchcock Presents
  • *Season 4 Episode 29: "Banquo's Chair" – John Bedford
  • *Season 5 Episode 12: "Specialty of the House" – Mr. Costain
  • Danger Man episode: "Josetta" – Juan
  • Strange Report episode: "HOSTAGE — If You Won't Learn, Die!"
  • Search for the Nile
  • Man at the Top – Joe Lampton
  • Moll Flanders – Jemmy Earle
  • Hazlitt in Love – William Hazlitt
  • Maybury
  • The Testament of John
  • The Fourth Floor – George Payne
  • The Blackheath Poisonings – Charles Russell